I found it when
I cleaned out the
guestroom closet. It still says ANDREW clearly enough though the marker
has
bled into the cardboard over the years, getting faded and fuzzy, like
memories
do. I can still see stains on the lid – three of them. Isn’t it strange
how
something as insubstantial as tears can leave marks that last so long?

A wing chair
sits by the window and I
sit in it with the box on my lap. Sunlight oozes through the glass,
warming my
skin. The view is both a snapshot of the common and a canvass on which
to paint
dreams. I can see the clothes-line, a corner of the garden devoted to
carrots,
and the fence where wild grapes grow between our place and Hoskin’s
clover
field. The field is dotted with pixels of violet amid variegated green;
beyond
are the shadows of the forest. It’s easy to see why Andy liked to sit
here for
so many hours. The wing chair takes up just a little more space than
his
wheelchair did.

###

“Dad?” he’d
asked. “Can I get a
marionette?” We were on the porch and the breeze played impishly with
the pages
of the catalogue which lay open on his withered lap.

“Wouldn’t you
rather make one? We
could work on it together.”

“But I like this
one,” he’d said. Surprisingly,
the puppet he’d chosen was a smooth, faceless thing like those
featureless,
jointed dolls artists use to practice sketching the human form. It
seemed cold
and alien to me.

“Wouldn’t you
rather have one that
looked like someone, Andy? A knight maybe? A cowboy? A wizard? You love
wizards.”

He’d smiled at
me then like adults
sometimes smile at children we consider slow. “But this one,” he said,
tapping
the page with a fragile finger, “can be anyone.”

A week later the
marionette arrived,
cloistered in the same box where it still rests, and for months it was
Andy’s
constant companion. His thin hands adapted quickly to the controlling
cross,
and with it he could make that creature dance
. . . and run . . . and do the splits . . . and a hundred other things
that
healthy legs and whole bodies can do. He named it, Andrew.

Andrew was with
Andy at the end.

I wasn’t.

I was mowing the
yard for the last
time of that year. Andy was on the porch in a rectangle of late sun,
tipping
and turning the cross to make Andrew hop between the shadows of the
balusters
and the shafts of sunlight like a pianist’s fingers flickering between
black
and white keys.

He left without
saying goodbye
sometime while I was parking the mower in the shed. I found him wilted
into his
chair; all of his strength had flowed from him, down the strings, and
into
Andrew who still dangled from Andy’s hand, dancing in the October
breeze.

I screamed then.
And I wept. And I
raged.

I tore Andrew
from Andy’s hand and I
cursed him. I wrapped the hateful strings which would make his body move, but not my son’s, around
his smooth, solid form and
I threw him as far as I could. He waved and swam and kicked at me as he
flew.

I buried Andy
that fall on a wet day,
under a sky the color of steel. I think it was raining. All I remember
about
the winter is that it was dark, and so very cold.

When spring
came, before the grape
leaves unfurled, I felt the need to walk along the fence until I found
Andrew
tangled among the vines. With a skill and motivation not my own, I
disentangled
the marionette, carried it into the house, and placed it in its box.

###

I still weep. I
still rage. I still
want to scream. Time changes nothing except frequency. But from time to
time I
feel a pull, as if from unseen strings, and I turn my face to the sun.

I still smile
too.

So I sit here
and raise the lid a bit
– not completely, I don’t want to see Andrew’s limp, unstrung body –
and slide
my hand inside . . . to touch the strings.

Terry
Durbin lives in Southeast Iowa on a ridge
overlooking the Mississippi River floodplain. He studied biology at
Western
Illinois University and has worked as a sportswriter. He has published
two
novels; The Legacy of Aaron Geist, and Chase. Currently he is preparing
to
release a collection of short stories: Reflections in a Dark Mirror.
Tdurbin99@msn.com